


States all Round

by Batrisk4044



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Male Friendship, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sick Character, Sickfic, Sneezing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:47:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21934699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batrisk4044/pseuds/Batrisk4044
Summary: Toby Ziegler is trying to write the State of the Union Address, with Sam's help, and a cold. Fluff featuring the West Wing boys being their usual dysfunctional family.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	States all Round

Toby Ziegler, communications director to the President of the United States of America, calmly took his silver cigarette lighter, held it under a sheet of closely written paper, and lit it. The ensuing flames and smoke lit his face with flickering hues, making the middle-aged, bearded man look more haggard than the normal lighting could achieve. Tossing the smouldering remains into the garbage bin, he pinched the bridge of his nose. It was coming to the stage when he knew he had to go home soon. Toby didn't much like this fact, but nor did he like the fact that he was finding it distinctly difficult to read the words on the page. Not that there were any words on this particular page. He stared at the unwritten yellow pad. Every writer's nightmare: the blank page. Luckily he was distracted by his office door opening. Sam put his head around it. He looked at the pad, and at Toby, and refrained from commenting.  
  
"I'm going home now."  
  
Toby looked at him blankly. "Okay."  
  
"I just thought I'd let you know. I've done the first draft of the Bureau of Economic Research acceptance speech if you want it now," Sam was wearing the sheepish expression of a man who knows his boss is going to stay in his office for several hours longer than he needs to, with the result of getting no work done anyway, and also that there is nothing he can do about it.  
  
"Alright. I'll take a look at it tomorrow." Toby had dropped the eye contact, and was looking at his pages of notes. It was for the State of the Union. It wasn't his first time writing it, nor, he fervently hoped, would it be his last. But it was a big speech. He shook his head. It was a colossal speech. And the responsibility of that was visibly weighing on him. Sam could see it, and if it had been Josh, or CJ, or maybe even Leo, he would have said something. He knew better than to try it with Toby.  
  
"Okay. I'm…going home now." Sam continued to hover, wondering if the silent _'and you should too',_ had gotten through. Toby looked up, a faintly amused smile on his lips.  
  
"Sam, you don't have to tell me when you're going home. I notice. Your office light turns off." Sam blushed, muttered 'I'll see you tomorrow', and left. Toby stared down at the page, willing the words to come. When he'd been younger, it would never have bothered him that he found it hard to write the occasional speech. He had had that serene confidence of the young and intelligent; that he could do anything. Now, after several hard months of 'not quite right' writing, there was a nagging at the back of his mind that maybe this time was the beginning of the end. Maybe, this time, it wouldn't come back. Toby rubbed his tired eyes, and picked up what turned out to be an empty coffee mug. Taking this as an omen, coupled with the fact that he was generally a better writer in the morning anyway, he got up, put on his jacket, coat and muffler, and left the office, department, and building to go home, the cold January air biting through every layer of clothing as he walked.  
  
  
  
The next morning at approaching 7:30am, Toby stared at Sam's draft with the grim determination that he would get through it and do it well, damnit. After he had finished, written notes in every available marginal space, and almost, but not quite, spilled coffee all over it, he stepped into Sam's office. It was much brighter than his own, although Toby didn't remember having turned the lights down that morning, and the sudden exposure sent stabbing pains right to the core of the headache which had been lurking behind his eyes. Refusing to squint, and also registering an unhelpful urge to sneeze, Toby handed the typed sheets to Sam, who was reading at his computer. His eyes refocused slowly as he took the sheets.  
  
"They're fine. Just make the changes, and they're done." Sam nodded, already looking down at the first of the notes. Toby turned to leave, and Sam dragged himself back from the page, watching his boss. The guy was exhausted, unsurprisingly: the whole team had been working flat out for weeks. But Toby was more than that; he looked like a guy whose job had beaten him, and Sam knew exactly which job it was.  
  
"Listen, if you want a hand on the State of the Union, even the first draft, I haven't got that much on…" A flat-out lie and he knew it, and he knew that Toby knew it as well. Toby kept right on walking.  
  
"I do the first draft, Sam, that's how it works." The door shut behind him, and Sam sat back, disheartened and more than a little concerned as, a few moments later, he heard the sound of coughing from the next-door office.  
  
The coughing was of some concern even to Toby. The tickle in his throat had taken him completely by surprise, and he quickly took a swig of coffee to stop himself, wiping his watering eyes on the back of his hand. He hadn't woken up feeling 100 percent, it was true, but he refused to accept that he might be getting sick. Things like that didn't happen to Tobias Zachary Ziegler. Germs and viruses ran away at one look. So, ignoring the persistent ache behind his eyelids, and the soreness in his throat, Toby picked up a pen and tried to fill the page.  
  
Nearly an hour later, with many more ashes in the garbage can, Toby was a little further on, and the prospect of getting sick was now more than a faint possibility. It was almost certain. Picking up his little rubber ball, he lay down on the couch and tossed it at the opposite wall. The bang was a familiar sound to the whole of the communications staff. It meant _'Toby is working. Disturb at your peril'._ The danger of being hit by a speeding ball was the least of a person's worries if they ignored that message.  
  
What the department did not expect to hear, less than ten minutes after the bouncing began, was the sound of a muffled, but still impressively explosive, sneeze.  
  
_"Heh' **chmpt!!** "_ Followed by another. _"Heh'KSHOO!"_ And another. _"Hah' **SHOO!** "_ Resignedly, Toby pulled out a white cotton handkerchief from his top pocket and blew his nose. That was it. He never sneezed, unless he was definitely sick. Lying back on the couch, Toby silently called upon all the curses he could think of and used them to describe his current situation. Then Ginger yelled at him to take a call from someone. Toby got up, slowly.  
  
"Okay, put her through." He picked up the phone and took the call, propping his feet on his desk and leaning back in the chair. It was Laura Peters, from the Arts Council. Blearily, through a brain that already felt fuzzed up with his impending cold, Toby remembered the points he had meant to make, and tried to make them. They were countered, and countered successfully. His nose itched, and he rubbed it with the back of his hand distractedly.  
  
"I know that," the female voice on the line said impatiently, "but you have to understand that there are other forms of art other than 'modern art'." Toby could hear the quotation marks. They annoyed him. He was getting pretty fed up with this conversation, pretty fed up of this whole subject, which he'd argued against on at least three occasions with other angry women he'd never met, and this one's shrill, Southern accent was not helping his headache. Grabbing his cup of nearly cold coffee, Toby's temper reached an unpleasantly high temperature, and he decided that it was time to end the phone call.  
  
"I understand that perfectly," he began, quite calmly, with a hint of the ironic smile he had given Sam the previous evening, "but what _you_ need to understand is that the money the White House gives to fund the arts is money that the taxpayer would prefer to be handed back, or at least placed somewhere where it is put to practical use. _Nevertheless_ ," and his voice rose a little more menacingly, "the White House sees fit to provide your organisation with more money than any previous government for the last 40 years. So perhaps you should show a little more gratitude, ma'am, rather than trying to dictate how we spend it." He put the phone down before Miss Peters had a time to answer. Without his realising it, the itch in his nose had increased and he was forced to sneeze, turning away from his desk and cupping hands over his nose and mouth.  
  
_"Heh'USHOOO!! **Uh'SHOOO!!** "_ The sneezes reverberated around the office, and Toby knew that it was only a matter of time before Sam heard and investigated. Blowing his nose softly, and returning the handkerchief to his pocket, he barely had time to look at the latest version of the address before there was a knock on his door and he was proven right.  
  
"Um, are you ok?" Sam looked like a guy whose sense of duty had brought him to the door and then abandoned him, and who was regretting attempting this conversation. Toby gave him a look that would have felled redwoods at 100 yards. Sam withdrew before he had a chance to speak. Toby, a little mollified that perhaps Sam was learning, slowly, turned back to work.  
  
He actually put in at least half an hour's almost decent writing before his brain turned to mush. He yelled for his secretary.  
  
"Ginger! Coffee!" There was a non-committal response, followed by Sam's voice, muffled by the office door so individual words couldn't be distinguished. Toby swallowed, feeling rawness in his throat, and congestion in his sinuses. This was all terrific. Incapacitated by a cold. He blew his nose into his handkerchief, and rubbed his reddening eyes. Sam put his head around the door.  
  
"Coffee," he said in the manner of a guy holding both hands out in front of him in the traditional gesture of 'look-I'm-not-holding-a-big-scary-weapon-please-don't-shoot-me'. Toby looked up and, after a moment or so, looked pointedly at the desk, so Sam entered and put it down. After a few seconds of hovering awkwardly he asked.

"How's it going?"  
  
Toby shrugged. "I've got some decent stuff for-" he paused. He had to sneeze. This was all too much. "For women's rights, for defence, for economics too, although I expect the President to rewrite most of that. It's a start." Sam nodded, and Toby rubbed at his nose.  
  
"If you need anything…" the statement tailed off into open-ended helpfulness. Toby nodded.  
  
"I'm going to write some more on crime, and probably environmental stu-" the urge to sneeze increased tenfold. Toby tried to ignore it. "stu- _HEH!_ …" he broke off completely, and pulled out his handkerchief, holding it to his face as he sneezed. _"Heh'USHOO!!"_  
  
"Gesundheit," said Sam. Toby blew his nose loudly, then returned the handkerchief to his pocket.  
  
"Thank you," he said pointedly, before continuing. "For environmental studies, and maybe healthcare." Sam nodded, taking the hint.  
  
"Ok. Ed and Larry are going to be in meeting room three in an hour to discuss the speech for the economists. We'd appreciate it if-"  
  
"I'll be there." The finality in Toby's voice was enough for Sam. He left.  
  
  
  
An hour later Toby sat shivering in the perpetually-frigid air conditioning of Meeting Room 3, going through the updated version of Sam's speech with Sam, Ed and Larry. His cold had gotten progressively worse in the short space of time, and he was thankful for the handkerchief in his pocket. He focused with more than a little effort on what Larry was saying.  
  
"I really think this would be a good platform for the stuff we want to say about the economy. It's gonna be broadcast on three channels, so why not use the opportunity?"  
  
Sam cut across him, but not impatiently. "The President is very set on keeping this separate from any campaigning. It's an honour for him, and he wants it to be seen that he has talents other than being…well, the President."  
  
Toby nodded. "There're plenty-" he began hoarsely, before clearing his throat and continuing: "plenty of campaign speeches to talk about economics where we can draw on this award. Make the speech about the presidency and it won't be as memorable. Make it about what it's about."  
  
It was Ed's turn this time to come in. "That's another thing. It's _about_ the amount he's aided modern economic research. I'm sorry, but I didn't follow a whole lot of that. How is it going to be memorable if it's unintelligible to the majority of the audience?"  
  
Sam looked a little offended. He had, after all, written the draft. "What was difficult to understand? I was trying to keep it detailed with what he'd achieved."  
  
"Yes, and in doing so, you made it unintelligible. Only economists understand what he's achieved. That's why they're the only ones giving him the prize," Ed persisted.  
  
"And you're losing the chance to talk about his economic achievements as President," Larry added, unwilling to be forgotten about. "He could talk about the budget-"  
  
"The President isn't going to talk about the budget at an acceptance speech." Sam was adamant. Toby decided that he had to take control.  
  
"No campaigning. Add in a final paragraph about how this will be being continued over the term. We'll leave the audience thinking about him as President, but we won't-" he paused, a briefly pained expression passed over his face, and he reached into a pocket. Turning aside quickly, he sneezed a resounding, _"Huh'SHOO!!"_  
  
Sam watched Toby as he blew his nose briefly. "Gesundheit. You'll ask the President about it?" Toby nodded, and stood, dissolving the meeting. He got Ginger to arrange a time with the President, and was surprised to get one only two hours later. Passing in the corridor, Josh Lyman looked at his colleague with undisguised concern.  
  
"You ok?"  
  
"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" Toby paused for an answer, sniffing slightly.  
  
"You look…" Josh searched in vain for a non-insulting word for how Toby looked, and settled, eventually, on the factual one, "like someone-" he stopped, because Toby took that precise moment to sneeze a desperate, _"Huh'USHISH!"_ into cupped hands. "-getting a cold," he finished.  
  
Toby blew his nose yet again. "Thanks for that," he muttered as he finished. "Have you seen the President?"  
  
Josh shook his head. "No, I was here for Leo. But," he lowered his voice conspiratorially, "you see that door over there, the one with the wall that curves round it? I'm betting he's in there." With an overacted wink, he continued back to his office, leaving Toby to follow the curving wall to the door to the Oval Office.  
  
Josiah Bartlet looked up as he entered. "Hiya, Toby," he said from his desk, beckoning the man in. "Charlie said it was about the acceptance speech for the Bureau of Economics? Am I getting a draft soon?"  
  
"Yes, sir, it was about putting in a final paragraph."  
  
"I haven't seen the rest of the paragraphs yet, so I'm not sure how helpful I can be, Toby. By the way, did you know that the Yellowstone National Park was the first National Park in the world?"  
  
Toby resisted the urge to groan. He had gotten used to the President's obsession with National Parks after a while, but it never failed to fill him with the need for an expression of 'I could care less', which took some resisting. "No, I didn't know that, sir. We want to-"  
  
"Established in 1872, would you believe," the President continued.  
  
"Really, sir? This paragraph would be about continuing the role of economics in your future term as President, sir."  
  
"Campaigning? I thought we discussed this."  
  
"Not specific campaigning, sir. Just drawing attention to the fact that we have plans." Toby's nose was itching again, and he knew by now that there was nothing he could do about it. He sniffed as discreetly as he could as the President mulled it over.  
  
"Surely the voters know I have plans. They were listening when I outlined them."  
  
"Yes, sir. But we're just reminding them that you're both an economist, and the Pre- _heh!-_ the President, sir." Toby's breath hitched uncontrollably, and he pulled out his handkerchief in a weary gesture. "Excu- _heh!'_ -'scuse me," he mumbled, before turning aside. _"Heh'SHOO! Heh'EHSHOO!"_ Yet again, he blew his nose into his handkerchief before turning back to the President, who was watching him.  
  
"Bless you."  
  
"Thank you, sir."  
  
Jed Bartlet was regarding his communications director as shrewdly as an economist who is married to a doctor can. "Toby, if I didn't know better, I'd swear you were getting a cold."  
  
"I believe 'got' would be a more apt tense, sir," replied the communications director drily.  
  
"Well, I am sorry to hear that. You have my sympathies. Nevertheless, I want this paragraph toned down to a minimum of the atmospheric, epic images that Sam has been so keen to add into my speeches of late. Tell him to save them for the State of the Union." Toby nodded. "How is that going, by the way?"  
  
"Slowly. Is that all, sir?" The President nodded, and Toby left the Oval Office. He looked in on Sam's office on the way back.  
  
"He agreed to the end paragraph, but nothing showy." Sam nodded, opening a new window on his computer screen to start work. Toby went back to his own room and got out the rubber ball. The rhythmic pounding returned to the department.  
  
By the end of his normal working day, six p.m., Toby's cold was in full swing. He had given up on the handkerchief, and was quickly working his way through a box of tissues found in a bottom drawer of his desk. His nose was constantly itching, and he frequently had to pause his writing to sneeze, painfully. None of this was half as disheartening, however, as the fact that his writing was getting worse. As the lights around him dimmed, and Toby surveyed the mediocre paragraph in front of him, depression set in. At seven o'clock, Sam knocked on the door.  
  
"Can I come in? Toby nodded. Sam closed the door and sat down. "I've done the paragraph. How's it going?"  
  
Toby shrugged, clearing his throat before speaking, his voice still thick. "It's not coming. _This"_ \- he ripped the top page off his pad and screwed it up, "isn't worth the paper." He sighed, and looked at a page of notes again. "I've been looking at last year's speech." He stopped, bracing himself for the confession. "It's the sort of work I ought to be writing, and I can't get there." He paused, and pulled a tissue from the box, blowing his nose. Sam watched sympathetically.  
  
"This isn't the kind of speech that just happens…" he began, uncertainly.  
  
"Ideas for it should," broke in Toby, before pulling out another tissue and jerking forward in a series of short, harsh sneezes. _"Heh'USHOO! ISHOO! Uh' **SHISH!!** "_  
  
"Gesundheit," said Sam, for the third time that day. "Toby, go home. You're sick. No one writes well when they're sick. Least of all this sort of thing. Look at it tomorrow."  
  
Toby nodded distractedly, then looked off into the middle distance. "Healthcare…" he muttered to himself quietly, then picked up a pen and twirled it, leaning back in his chair. Sam watched him for a few moments, then quietly got up and left. Half an hour later, Toby came into his office. He looked flushed, almost feverish, and his voice was hoarse as he explained, but he handed Sam a piece of paper with a short paragraph on it.  
  
"He said epic. That's what we want. We want epic. What we didn't do last time, that's what we'll be doing this time. Just watch us." He had to keep from pacing the room as Sam read, an excited smile hovering on his lips. Sam read to the end, then let out a slow breath and looked up, matching Toby's excited eyes with his own sparkle.  
  
"Okay," he said slowly, keeping his voice steady. "Okay. We've got the framework. We know where we're going." Toby nodded emphatically. Sam smiled more broadly. "That makes things a whole lot easier. Now… _go home."_ He met Toby's gaze firmly, taking the older man by surprise. "You're sick. Go to bed, and we'll start this tomorrow."  
  
"No, now we can start work. Now we can-" Toby couldn't finish this sentence because another sneeze shook his body, _"Heh'SHOO!"_ Followed by yet another, _"Heh'YUSHH!"_ He coughed slightly at the force of the second sneeze, but when he straightened up, he was still smiling. "Okay." He admitted, a little chastened. "But tomorrow morning, we _will_ start work." Sam nodded, relieved that his boss had taken his advice so quickly. Toby strode out of the office, his head held high. Not bad for a man with a cold.

The next morning Toby was in work by a quarter past seven. In the hope of battling on despite his cold, he had got up and left the house as soon as possible, with the vague idea that if he got into the office before his body really knew it was awake, then perhaps he would get some half-decent writing before it began to drag him down. Unfortunately, Toby's rigorous logic failed him once again, and it merely meant that he arrived at work shivering from the cold, feeling like death barely warmed up, and without his handkerchief.  
  
As he reached his office, the continual blasts of warm air from the building's heating system caught his already sensitive nose, and he hurried in, slamming his briefcase onto the desk before cupping hands over his nose and mouth.  
  
_"H'USHOO! Hey'ISSSHOO!!"_ The increasingly desperate sneezes bent the brown-haired and -bearded figure almost double as they hit. Feeling in his coat, then his jacket, then his trouser pockets, Toby swore under his breath. Sniffing wetly, he pulled a tissue from the half-empty box on his desk and blew his nose. But he was determined not to let this less than good start to the day put him off. Ginger wasn't in yet, but Toby quite enjoyed the quiet and solitude of his office in the early mornings. Sitting down in his comfortable swivel chair, he picked up the only good outcome of yesterday's work: his short, epic-scale paragraph on healthcare, read it through, and then started to write afresh. Half an hour later, Ginger waved at him through the glass, taking her coat off and putting it on the chair. He nodded, which was the closest he ever got to good morning, even on a day when his throat hadn't been sandpapered over night, and she mimed 'coffee' at him. Another nod. Five minutes later she brought it on.  
  
"Wha-" Toby rasped, before clearing his throat tersely, "What appointments do I have this morning?" Ginger reeled them off; none were as important as this. "Move them all to this afternoon or tomorrow, will you?"  
  
"Toby, some of these already got moved-" she protested, but he wasn't in the mood, and she noticed as his eyebrows approached each other, and amended. "But yeah, of course." As his eyes returned to the page in his lap, she put his coffee down on the table, and placed a couple of aspirin beside it, before leaving to join her colleagues in the typing pool.  
  
Toby worked steadily, ignoring the aspirin, but gratefully drinking the coffee, both for the caffeine hit and the warm, soothing liquid on his sore throat. As it came up to half past eight, Sam arrived, turning on the light in his office. The sudden brightness reflected from Toby's computer screen, which he still hadn't switched on, preferring to handwrite before typing anything up. The sharp flash of light pinwheeled right into the centre of Toby's headache, and an intense itch in his nose caused him to turn quickly away from his desk, grabbing a tissue from the box as he moved. The tickle teased at his nose, causing his breath to come in short gasps, and his eyes to narrow in a desperate, far-away look. Toby sniffed, and the itch decreased, but after another second returned strongly. He took a deep, involuntary breath, and it disappeared completely, leaving only an irritating stinging and a need to blow his nose, which he did. Frustrated, and still with his sinuses smarting painfully, Toby turned back to his desk, where the bright, reflected light remained, which had been the first cause of all the trouble. The renewed brightness triggered his photic reflex at last, and Toby turned away for the second time, sneezing a ringing, _**"Hah'SHAAA!"**_ into his tissue, then blowing his nose again.  
  
As he returned to his work, satisfied at last, and turned the computer screen helpfully away, there was a knock at the door.  
  
"Come in, Sam," said Toby, surprised by how congested his voice still was. Sam pushed the door open.  
  
"Morning." This got no reply, but he hadn't been expecting one. "How are you feeling?" Sam looked slightly embarrassed at having to ask.  
  
"I'm fine," Toby began, but spoiled the effect completely by sneezing yet again, _"H'USHISH!!"_  
  
"Gesundheit," Sam responded as Toby blew his nose and threw the tissue into the waste paper basket.  
  
"Anyway," he continued, still refusing to answer Sam's question properly, "I've done some more on education and on the economy. I want you to head up a section on security and defence. You can use my notes from yesterday. Once you've done that, and I've finished this part, we should come back together, sort out some of the links, and then take it to the President." He rubbed at his eyes, which were already looking red, and Sam's sympathy welled at the bad timing of his boss's cold. He knew better than to comment, though; Toby wouldn't dream of complaining about feeling like crap, and Sam's drawing attention to it could only make things worse.  
  
An hour, and several more cups of coffee later, Toby looked down at his piece of paper with some sense of satisfaction. Then he noticed that he was shivering, despite the central heating in his office. He quickly popped the two aspirin that Ginger had put on his desk, and reread the last few paragraphs. Then he went and knocked on Sam's door.  
  
"How's it coming?" Sam had his pen between his teeth and was reading a page and a half of closely written lines. Toby rubbed at his reddening nose, resisting the now almost constant urge to sneeze. Sam looked up, but retained a far-away look. Slowly, his eyes refocused, and when they did, they were excited.  
  
"I think I've got it." He looked back down at the sheet, and nodded to himself. "Yeah, I think I'm nearly there." Toby nodded, and jerked his head back to his own office, where he sorted out his own notes and pages. Sam joined him, eyeing the nearly empty box of tissues, and the reciprocally growing pile in the waste paper can, with some concern. This was soon erased, however, by the challenging discussion that followed.  
  
Firstly, Toby took Sam's work and read it through in silence. This was a familiar occurrence for Mr Seaborn, but the familiarity did not in any way dispel the extreme awkwardness of watching a superior writer read through his own work. It didn't help that Sam knew his work in this case was not something Toby was going to let into the speech without a fight. In an attempt at fairness, his boss did at least read right to the end before letting rip, in a quiet, contained, but no less intense manner.  
  
"You realise where you are sitting?" Sam nodded. Toby looked down at the sheaf of notes in his hand, then up at Sam again. "Oh good. Because for a moment I thought you had suddenly taken over Josh's, or perhaps Leo's job without letting me know?" Sam made to speak, without any clear idea of what he was going to say, but Toby spoke straight across him. "We are _speechwriters_ to the President, Sam. We do not dictate foreign policy. It, is, not, our, job." Toby emphasised each word in the last sentence with patronising clarity. It wasn't as if he didn't know what Sam was doing.  
  
A few weeks earlier a disturbance, or more accurately, a revolution, had broken out in a little known African country, and there had been almost 2,000 deaths before the Americans, working from within their embassy, had managed to help appoint a new president. There had been no American troops sent, despite their almost certain chance of winning with very limited casualties, due to their far superior weapons, and now there were 2,000 fewer citizens left for the new president to preside over, because the President of the United States was not willing to risk his army's lives. C.J., the press secretary, had put a good spin on it, emphasising the American Embassy's important role, but the White House had taken a week of hard questions that were still ringing in most people's ears, before the press had died down. More importantly for the Communications Department, Sam had been apoplectic about the event, and had only just restrained himself from storming into the Oval Office to make his feelings known. Toby understood his reasons perfectly clearly, and felt, to a much lesser extent, the indignant rage of his coworker: after all that the government had said about equality, and America's duty to uphold this right, and their duty to provide aid, both political, economic and, if necessary, military, they had stood back and not wanted to risk American lives. An African was still worth less.  
  
"Sam," Toby began in a calmer tone, because he could sympathise with Sam's pain at being disillusioned, even if he didn't really share it, but it was too late.  
  
"This is what the government _should_ be doing," the younger man's voice was louder than he'd intended, but he didn't lower it. "It's not _our_ fault if it's not. We aren't going to be able to sell foreign policy with what happened, so we're just going to have to sell it with what we _ought_ to be doing. It's what's _right,_ Toby, and you know it, and the President knows it, and we've all admitted that Masazi was a mistake, even if we aren't going to announce it, but we've _got to,_ _somewhere,_ say that we're going to do it better next time. And we're going to have to say _something_ in this paragraph, so I think we should do it here." Sam's look was as intense as Toby had ever seen it, even when Masazi had been a running issue. Toby knew that he took no pride in having been right all along, and he knew that Sam really, truly believed this. There was also a thought in the back of his mind that, if he'd been in Sam's position, at Sam's age, he himself might have been doing just what Sam was doing now. But Toby believed in wisdom through age and experience, and he wasn't going to let Sam write his own damn foreign policy for the President without a fight.  
  
"Listen to me," he said, standing up, and matching Sam's volume. "You do not get to make this decision! We do not decide foreign policy, here, in this room. Nor do you get to say that we've agreed we made a mistake. If we wanted to flag that up for the press to have, we'd have done it already. And you know why we didn't send troops to Masazi?" He didn't let Sam answer, although he'd already started to speak. "It was because of the Republicans. I know," he paused, and his voice weakened a little, because Toby really didn't feel up to having this conversation, "that you don't think it's much of a reason-"  
  
"It's not!" Sam was angry, and hurt at being reprimanded for his opinions. "We won this election, we get the right-"  
  
"We get the right to lose ourselves a huge percentage of the vote? For a situation that we could have sorted out peaceably, that we _did_ sort out peaceably? Just listen for a second!" Toby's voice broke as he shouted, and he coughed for a few seconds into his fist. "Listen," he began again, more quietly. "It was a bad choice with hindsight, but _only_ with hindsight. This whole situation, you've made it into something it isn't. You think the President lied to you." There it was, hanging in the air, that simple statement, and Sam knew he was right. All the righteous indignation was a front for the much deeper hurt that he felt, because he'd campaigned for this man, who had promised equality and aid and all the things he'd written in speech after speech for him, and then when the time came, he'd done the opposite, and people had died, and it was his fault. Toby could see Sam's discomfort, and let him in on the information that the younger man had missed out on. "Look, I spoke to Leo while it was happening…while you were busy telling people what they should do…he told me that at the beginning, when the President was considering sending troops in, he got a call from Peter Rees." Sam looked at him sharply.  
  
"The Ambassador? The one who was-"  
  
"The guy who was murdered in the riot the day after, yeah. He told the President that they had it under control, that they were ready to get the new president into command. Leo said that intelligence they got a few days after, when it was clear that Rees had been wrong, confirmed that at the time of the phone call, the Embassy was occupied by rebels. Rees made it with a gun to his head." Toby paused, partly to give Sam time to take this in, and partly to blow his nose. When they had both finished, Sam passed a hand over his eyes, and tried to think about what he'd written in light of this new revelation.  
  
"But what all this means, is that what I wrote is the real foreign policy," he began slowly, still trying to sort it out in his mind.  
  
Toby retook his seat wearily, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, but the Republicans are going to come back at us, and strongly for it. You know what they'll say."  
  
"They'll say that it's asking Americans to put their lives at risk for unnecessary reasons, they'll say it's not our job to be the global watchdog, they'll say that the President is spoiling for a fight, and that it's not wise because of his limited military experience. But none of that matters, don't you see?" Toby looked up. It must be the virus dulling his thoughts, but he didn't know what Sam was going to say. "Masazi is going to help us here," and it was a sign that Sam's hurt feelings had ebbed away, because he would never have said that before this new information. "The people are more likely to want the President to say that next time we'll send troops in, because of the spin the press put on it. They know that we didn't do as well as if we'd sent forces, and we're giving them what they want to here." Toby nodded slowly, then looked down at Sam's draft with new eyes, scanning this time for language rather than content. When he finished, he handed it back to Sam.  
  
"We'll take it to the President, it's his call," he said finally, before shouting, "Ginger!" Again his voice cracked, and he took a swig of coffee to stop coughing, which had now got to his chest, giving coarse, hacking sounds. As a smoker, he supposed he should expect it. Sam glanced at him, all his concern flowing back now that the confrontation had finished, and he saw that his boss looked exhausted. Ginger entered. "Call Charlie and ask for a meeting with the President sometime today."  
  
"Ok, but I haven't been able to move your lunch with Patrick Newman," she said calmly, bracing herself for the result. "It's been booked for weeks, and his secretary said he's booked up for a month if you don't take it." Patrick Newman was yet another member of the Arts Committee who wanted to complain about how the government was spending the taxpayer's money. Toby sighed, but grudgingly agreed to go. As Ginger left, he looked back to Sam.  
  
"We'll give the President what we've got in separate paragraphs; we won't have time to sort the links, but it'll give him an idea." Sam nodded, and took his draft back to his office.  
  
  
  
  
At precisely 1:30, Toby met Patrick at one of the nearby bistros, and sat down to look at a menu. He wasn't at all hungry, which was unsurprising considering the temperature he knew he must be running now that the aspirin had worn off, but he chose a salad anyway, and took a long drink of water before opening negotiations. Mr Newman nearly ran him over with his pre-prepared spiel before he'd swallowed his mouthful.  
  
"Now listen, Toby," said the younger, blonde-haired, spectacled man across the table, as he smoothed his tie and leant forward. It was not a good start, if one considered that Toby was not feeling his best and did not like over-familiarity at any time. Especially not from someone who wanted to tell him how to advise the President. Poor Mr Newman knew none of this, however. "You have to agree," he continued, "that the way the government, _your_ government, is spending the arts budget, is less than representative of what the people want to see it spent on. Did you know that 72 percent of voters think there's too much modern art around?" Toby hadn't known this, and wasn't particularly sure he did now. There were many ways of making statistics say what you wanted them to. He didn't really care. He could hardly believe that he was sitting at lunch with yet another person from the Arts Committee. First the letters two weeks ago, then the phone calls last week, then that women yesterday who'd droned on and on about 'Mardern Art' in her irritating accent, and now he was sitting across from a man he'd never seen before in his life, who had just called him Toby, and God help him if he wasn't going to sneeze. Quickly pulling out a tissue that he'd taken from his office, because he would be damned if he was going to make the same mistake twice in one day, Toby raised a hand to the man who was still expecting an answer, as he held it to his nose.

  
_"Heh…heh'USHOO! USHISH! Huh…huh…Huh'ISSSSHOO!!!"_ Sniffing, with his nose still itching, although less so, Toby turned back to the conversation. He was sick. He was certainly not going to apologise for it to Mr Patrick Newman of the Arts Committee.  
  
"God bless," said Newman, as Toby blew his increasingly sore nose. "Well, anyway, the government spends almost 70 percent of the arts budget on so-called 'modern art', neglecting the much older and better respected arts of painting, sculpture and printing to a shocking degree." Toby thought it probably would have been shocking three weeks ago, but that statistic had been bandied around so often to him that it merely filled him with dispassionate boredom. Nevertheless, he sensed that his approach to Laura Peters of stating that it was none of her business, would not work on Mr Newman. He tried a different tack.  
  
"Have you heard of the organization 'Americans for the Arts'?" He didn't give the man a chance to reply in case he had. "It's a not-for-profit organization that came from the merging of the 'National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies' and the 'American Council for the Arts' last February. Last year they put almost $9 million into funding just the kind of arts that you mentioned. They're doing fine on their own, whereas modern art is getting much less charitable funding-"  
  
"Because the public doesn't like it-"  
  
"Because it is less well accepted. And the government is choosing to try and change this. That is why it is funding it." With perfect timing, Toby's phone beeped. It was Ginger, informing him, to his huge relief, that the only time he could see the President was in half an hour. He turned back to Mr Newman, and with a look of mock dismay, informed him, "I'm afraid I have to get back to the West Wing now: the President of the United States wants a meeting. I think we've finished here?" Newman grunted non-committally, and Toby left the bistro.  
  
34 minutes later, he and Sam stood uneasily in the Oval Office, while the President perused Sam's work. It was, if possible, worse than having Toby read it, because the President did not hide his facial expressions as he hit certain phrases. His eyebrows raised, and stayed raised until he had finished.  
  
"I said epic. I may not have made it quite clear that I didn't mean the sort of epic where you make it up. This is quite a step away from what we've said before."  
  
"With respect, sir, it's only a step away from what we've written in the last three weeks, while Masazi was being discussed. It's exactly what we were saying before that." Sam was blushing, as he always did when he had to tell truth to power, but he was determined to.  
  
"There's some truth in that," President Bartlet mused. "Well, it needs some polishing-"  
  
"All of it does, sir," Toby hurried to say "They're only the first drafts."  
  
"Of course. And they need to be put in a coherent order."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"Other than that…it's a fine start,"  
  
"Thank-" Toby broke off as his voice gave out, and coughed into his fist. "Thank you, sir," he managed to choke out, before continuing to cough unhealthily. For the first time in the meeting, Jed Bartlet noticed the state of his Communications Director.  
  
"Toby, for goodness' sake, sit down before you fall down," he admonished, pouring him a glass of water from the decanter on his desk and coming from behind it to hand it to him. Toby took it gratefully, sinking down onto one of the Oval Office's leather sofas. Sam, in deference, sat on the one opposite. The President stood leaning against his desk and watching as Toby, most embarrassed, recovered his breath.  
  
"Well anyway, I think it's a fine start to the speech. Have you done a draft of the acceptance speech for the Bureau of Economic Research for me, now?" Sam nodded.  
  
"Yes, sir, I can drop that in before the end of the day."  
  
"You've been busy then," said President Bartlet, still eyeing Toby sternly, who wearily realised that he was going to sneeze, for what felt like the millionth time that day, and in a particularly unhelpful situation. The President continued: "And I'm grateful for the work you've put in over the last few days." Sam murmured a thank you, and Toby nodded, before pulling a tissue from his pocket and sneezing violently.  
  
_"Heyyy'ISHH!"_ A few seconds passed, before, _"Heh'SHOOO!"_ Toby blew his nose wearily.  
  
"God bless you."  
  
"Thank you, sir."  
  
"As I said, I'm grateful for your work. It hasn't been an easy few weeks, and it won't be an easy time ahead either, so if I were you," and here Jed looked pointedly at Toby, "I'd take the opportunity to go home, and get some rest." Toby looked up and met the President's gaze.  
  
"Thank you, sir."  
  
"That's all, then."  
  
"Thank you, Mr President," Toby and Sam chorused. When Toby got back to his office, he packed up his briefcase, put the remaining few tissues into his pocket, threw the box into the bin, put on his jacket, coat, and scarf, and made to leave. He then went and knocked on Sam's door. Sam looked up, surprised to see his boss so wrapped up at only half past two in the afternoon.  
  
"I'm going home, then," Toby said awkwardly, remembering the mirror situation two days ago.  
  
"Goodnight, Toby," Sam responded, smiling.


End file.
